#mal-information

Disinformation refers to false information that is deliberately created and shared with the intent to deceive or harm. This article from DW provides a clear definition and examples of disinformation, such as fabricated news stories or manipulated media designed to mislead the public. An attentive reader can identify disinformation by checking the source's credibility, looking for signs of manipulation in the content, and cross-referencing with reliable information. The deliberate nature of disinformation often involves sophisticated techniques to appear legitimate, making critical evaluation skills essential.

Misinformation is false information that is spread without the intent to deceive. This Psychology Today article explains how misinformation can arise from errors, cognitive biases, or a lack of fact-checking. For example, a celebrity might share an incorrect fact in an interview without realizing it’s false. Attentive readers can identify misinformation by verifying the information against multiple credible sources, considering its shared context, and recognizing that the spreader may not have malicious intent. Misinformation often spreads rapidly due to its seemingly benign nature and the trust placed in the original source.

Dis-Information:

In this TikTok post, we can easily detect disinformation for different reasons. First, when looking at the name of the account that published the video, we can see that this doesn’t seem to come from a reliable source. Looking at their account, you can see they are well known for publishing disinformation content. To continue, when we look at the comments, most validate that this is false and that AI even made up the event. With modern tools, people who want to create imaginative content have the possibility to do so, and this is a good example. Finally, when you look to verify the news, all the sources that come up are also confirming that this post is indeed not true. 

Mis-Information:

This post is representing misinformation for many reasons. When looking at the video for the first time, the lady speaking seems to be really convincing regarding her story. She will talk as if it is something that she has truly lived and that affected her and her daughter. She is very convincing in her talking and really can fool you if you don’t ask yourself more questions. Users can see this is misinformation when they visit her profile and see the follow-up video here. In this follow-up video, Jenny confirms that her first post was misleading and that she was referencing her cat when she was talking about her daughter. This video represents information that isn’t true and that can easily mislead people. 

Mal-Information:

To explain the differences, it’s all about mens rea, or intent! What is the intent of purpose of sharing ?-information? This helps to better understand and deal with the 3 different types of ?-information, so here goes … Mis-information: The unintentional spread of falsehoods Mis-information is any false information that is spread without the intent to mislead. It’s the rumour that starts…

What do we think of when we think of misinformation, disinformation and mal-information. I had no idea such terminologies existed. But when I read about them, it's quite scary to see how prevalent such types of informations are on social media, and media outlets.

Misinformation: :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciwyYnwYFaQ Misinformation is false or misleading content. It also refers to false information that is disseminated in good faith. When Covid vaccines started rolling out there were many speculations that the vaccines will kill you in the long run. These ideologies are a result of scientific illiteracy. As a result, misinformation would be spread, not with the intent of harming, but to somehow protect them from the after-effects of the vaccine. Misinformation would spread amongst civilians, especially quickly with the quick access to social media. This is not to say that only individuals on social media were able to spread misinformation, in fact in one of Joe Biden's interviews he said that you won't get covid if you have your vaccines, which is false. What he said was not with the intent of harming, however, what was told was false, leading it to be misinformation.

Disinformation: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/twitter-bots-are-a-major-source-of-climate-disinformation/ Disinformation is fabricated and manipulated content. Climate change is happening and is very much real. For many years, governments, firms, and individuals are taking steps to reduce their carbon footprints and to help with climate change by promoting different initiatives. Twitter bots have successfully been able to distort the climate change conversation online. The article I selected for disinformation notes how 885,164 tweets were sampled about climate change, 9.5% of the tweets were by bots, and accounted for 25% of the tweets. These tweets falsely claim that climate change is a pseudoscience, and would further feed into false biases and increase group polarization.